Stephanie Lessing

I
remember the first time I saw Ali G on TV with Dan and Jesse. I was squirming
in my seat. “How can he do that to people?” I kept yelling.

Doesn’t
he want to tell on himself already?”

I
can’t even play the card game “Bullshit” without shooting out of my chair,
shouting, “I’m lying!! I don’t have any
threes at all. Those are Kings! See for
yourself!”

I
literally had to cover my eyes when Ali G started in on someone. Dan and Jesse
could sit there all night, watching one uptight, pompous political stiff after
another being made to look like a complete fool by the most brilliant guy on
the planet, pretending to be a moron. 

And
then along came Borat and I remember asking Dan and Jesse, “Who is going to
watch this besides you two?” They
couldn’t answer me because they couldn’t breathe. I stood there cringing at the doorway, while Borat told some
female activist that he would very much like to be inside her vageene.

Dan
almost had a hard attack he was laughing so hard and Jesse was taping it so he
could watch it 136 more times that day.

I
guess I was wrong about Jesse and Dan being the only two people in America who
can sit through Borat without having to cover their eyes.

For
a while, we were all singing, “Throw the Jew Down the Well,” every morning in
our house. Nothing is more freeing than the exposure of ignorance through
humor, but I wonder how many people just like to hear that song for their own
special reasons.

Okay, some of these are too embarrassing, I’m actually blushing, and I don’t blame those of you who made me swear not to post them.  But I did get permission to post the one about the girl who gave a very professional presentation in a see through sweater so everyone saw her little pink bra with the bows on it– and then there’s the really, really excruciating toilet paper story.  The toilet paper fiasco is a classic, but this is by far the worst one I’ve ever heard.  I’m not sure if I even read it right, I was laughing so hard, but somehow I think she walked out of the bathroom with the toilet paper in her pantyhose and her skirt somehow hiked up around her waist.  All this because she lined the seat, something Zoe is famous for. 

In case you haven’t heard, AuthorBuzz is running a contest for a free copy of Miss Understanding.  I realize that a free copy of Miss Understanding isn’t really that great of a prize, compared to say, a car, but it’s always nice to win something, and here are the rules:

Send me an email describing the most humiliating thing that ever happened to you at work.  If it’s really good, I’ll send you a copy of the book.  If I laugh out loud, I’ll send you a copy of the book, and, with your permission, I’ll post it on my website.  So don’t hold back. 

So far I’ve gotten responses from a woman whose skirt fell off while she was walking to the parking lot, one whose slip fell down at her desk, one who keeps falling, but she’s actually having mini-strokes, so that’s actually not something we should be laughing about, one whose father did something that involves a sanitary napkin that I might have to post once all the responses are in, and one who pulled some guy’s tooth out by accident.  These all qualify as humiliating, and that’s what we’re going for, so have fun embarrassing yourself.  I can’t wait to read your stories.

My
Boston University signing went pretty well. My daughter Kim was sitting in the
front row, smiling at me the entire time, telling me to stand up straight, and
watching my every move, fully anticipating me to do something bizarre and
humiliating at any moment. I imagined
her praying to herself the whole time, “Dear God, please don’t let my mother
sneeze and pee in her pants or start talking baby talk.” My niece showed up
with her best friend and roommate, and at one point, she leaned over to her
roommate and whispered, “Don’t forget to ask questions at the end.”

This
is the reason we are put on this earth, in case you didn’t know it. All the boring stuff that happens in between
is just filler. The waking up and going to bed, the eating, the drinking, the
writing to all hours of the night, the picking up the kids and dropping them
off, the walking of the dog, the beating of the heart. All filler. Seeing your daughter look up at you with enormous pride, and a huge “I
love my mom,” grin on her face, and hearing your niece taking care of you by
forcing her friend to make up a question, is the reward for getting through the
rest of it. For some reason, my book signings always remind me of this.

There
was a woman there who had come to see me last year, except this year she had a
baby with her. She made a point of
saying it was hard for her to leave the house. I know all too well how hard it is to leave the house with a baby in
tow, which made me appreciate her presence all the more.

The
BU alum team were there, with hugs and gift-wrapped T-shirts, and some COM
students, and Jennifer O’Connell and two of her newscaster friends, who are
also writers, and a few girls in PR — and way in the back was a familiar face
that I couldn’t quite place. It turned
out to be the face of one of my myspace friends. When I figured out why she looked familiar, I was so surprised, I
blurted out, in the middle of my reading, “Oh, wait a minute, now I know where
I know you from!” The poor girl. Next time I’ll remind myself that people who
sit in the back probably don’t want to be pointed to and yelled at.

Anyway,
the reading was going really well. I was doing all my character voices, really
getting into it, when all of a sudden, someone asked me a question.

“I
notice in both of your books, there’s a strong sister relationship. Do you have a sister?”

And that’s what did it.

“Yes,
I have a sister and we’re very close.” My voice cracked on the word “close.”
And then it sort of crumbled and crashed, until I was forced to apologize for
crying. I saw Kim looking up at me, wishing she could save me from myself,
knowing it was only a matter of time before I did something unacceptable up
there. But she was smiling at me so
sweetly, as if to say, “It’s okay mom. You can cry about Aunt Robin.”

And so, in the future, if any of you come to my
readings, ask me anything. Anything at
all. Seriously, I’ll even tell you what size bra I wear. But please don’t say
the word sister. I love her too much to
talk about her without falling apart.

  More reviews!

Theromancereadersconnection.com has just
posted a great review. .  .“laugh-out-loud funny,”
and refers to it as both “touching and bone-tickling . .
.”

 

Additional reviews can be found at
Theloudlibrarian.com and Wordcandy.net. In addition, Bookviews.com is featuring "Miss Understanding" as one
of its selections for the month of November, Womenwhonetwork.com has added "Miss Understanding" to
its online library, and Womens-place.com is featuring it on the
homepage as its “November Book
Choice>’

Good, right?

I’ll be at the Boston University Barnes&Noble Thursday, November 2 at 7PM
I’ll be at Penn Station Hudson Booksellers Friday, November 3 from 2:00 -4:00 PM

No blogs for a while because I’m packing. I realize I’m only going to Boston for one
day, but still. 

We
saw the “Americans in Paris” exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art yesterday, in
honor of our houseguest, Kim’s camp friend, who’s visiting from France. When we left, I was in a bad mood. 

“What
the matter?” Dan asked.

“I
don’t want to see another portrait by John Singer Sargent for as long as live.”

”Why
not?”

“Because
I’ll never have one, so what’s the point? It’s like going to a restaurant and
ordering the most delicious thing on the menu, and then the food comes, and
after one bite, the waiter takes it away.”

”I
don’t see the correlation.”

“The
correlation is that I can’t stand looking at a painting for a few seconds.
People kept walking right in front of me the whole time. I need to take the
paintings home to enjoy them.”

“You
do realize that that’s not allowed.”

“Yes,
and I think it’s selfish on the museum’s part.”

“C’est
droll, no?” said the French boy.

“Maybe
we should go to a few galleries next weekend, and find a painting that’s
actually for sale.”

“No,I
only want those paintings.”

“How
about a poster of one of the paintings from the exhibit? You can put it in your office.”

“Oh,
please. I want an oil painting, not a
piece of paper.”

The
French boy was tapping Kim on the shoulder at this point, and making the
universal hand motion for crazy.

“It’s
funny because you hardly ever mention this intense desire you seem to suddenly
have for paintings.”

“That’s
because I typically avoid museums. What’s the point?”

“You’re
right. There is no point-in your
case. Museums are for people who know
how to share.”

And
then it occurred to me that I’ve always had a problem sharing pictures of any
kind. I guess there’s something about reproduced images that brings out the
worst in me. I have pictures of Dan and my kids all over my dressing room
mirror. They walk in and out of this
room constantly and I hardly gaze up at them. I’m too busy staring at their pictures.

When someone in my family, like my sister for example, looks through my
collection of family photos and says, “Oh, look at this one of my niece and
nephew! Can I have it?” I instantly try to talk her out of it. 

“You
really want that one? Don’t you think
Kim looks a little sad in that shot? She’s practically crying. And look how crooked Jesse’s tie is. You should probably just leave it here, so I
can throw it away later.”

And
then there are the old, torn, black and white photographs of my parents, and my
grandparents — particularly the ones of my mom when she was a teenager. The
glamorous, glossy photos of her standing beside her twin sister, both in their
satin sweet sixteen gowns, and the ones of my mother smoking a cigarette, in
her fur coat. I’d never be able to part with those. Kim once found them and put
them all around her room with scotch tape. I almost passed out.

“Oh
no, honey, you can’t hang these up!” I said, carefully lifting up the tape.
“They were processed at the turn of the century, and must lay flat for at least
another two hundred years, or else they’ll turn yellow.”

I
hate this about myself. I hate how possessive
I am about pictures of people who are still alive. I see these people every day, up close, in person, making all
sorts of faces. Photographs show only
one facial expression, one that the actual person rarely makes in real
life. Why do I feel so strongly about
making sure nothing happens to photographs of people I love? I guess it’s because I’m afraid of losing
these people, and, if nothing else, I’ll always be able to look at them,
looking back at me.

That,
of course, doesn’t explain my desire to take home paintings that don’t belong
to me. There’s no explanation for that really, other than that I just want to
keep them.

 

For those of you who have never heard of George Whitman, he is the 91 year old owner of a bookstore on the Left Bank of Paris called Shakespeare & Co.  Some of the greatest writers of all times hung out there and occasionally broke chairs over one another’s heads.  I won’t mention names, but I will tell you that one of them was not a communist.  Of course George is.  And that is why his store is available for anyone who so chooses to sleep over for as long as they like.  (THere’s a drunk in there who’s been sleeping over for five years). George feeds his guests (in a communal fashion) in addition to verbally abusing them and forcing them to do chores.  The only reason I know all this is because I watched a documentary about George tonight and I think I might be in love with him.

The thing that intrigued me the most, aside from the sick amount of books, is that when George needs a haircut, he lights his head on fire with a candle and then pats it out.  I mean most people wouldn’t be able to come up with an idea like that.  And that is why I am going to Paris to meet George.  Most of you have probably already been to this bookstore, but I only walked by it, having no idea that George was inside.  But now  I know, and I plan on sleeping over too.  But I’ll probably bring my own pillow.  You have to see how dirty this place is to believe it.  Bugs everywhere, and yet, I need to meet George and show him "She’s Got Issues."